“The ones she considered important,” Genevieve countered. “There are more important things to life than just being mahrime, child.” Her shoulders slouched, and she rested her elbows on the table, leaning forward somewhat as she did so.
The move surprised me. She’d been keeping her distance thus far, but also, her scent.
I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but I remembered it.
Scent, I’d thought, came from the perfumes you wore and the soap you used, the shampoo you cleaned your hair with.
But this was different.
It was like it came from her pores—she smelled like outside.
Yeah, I knew that was crazy.
She was locked inside, and it hadn’t rained in four days—so how the fuck could she smell of petrichor?
But she did.
She smelled of the earth after a rainfall. Clean and fresh, raw and strong.
“We’re not like regular Roma,” she began, and I forced myself to concentrate, because this was damn important.
A lot more important than her smell—even if it reminded me of when I was a little girl.
Of a time when I’d been safe, and in my family’s arms.
Of course, I hadn’t been safe, had I? That was a lie, but if my memory chose to play tricks on me, I was okay with that some days.
“Why are we different?”
“Because most Roma don’t get gifts, and they’re damn lucky they don’t either.” She huffed. “Certain lines, old lines, they get the gifts and the curses.”
My heart pounded at that, but I asked, “We’re an old line?”
“One of the oldest,” she confirmed, nodding. “We can trace our line straight back to India—that’s where our people are from.” She smiled. “Funny, I used to be proud of that.” Her eyes fluttered shut. “Now, I don’t give a damn. Priorities change as your life changes, Theodosia. You’d be wise to remember that.”
I swallowed. “I know that already.”
“Reckon you do, considering you were raised in foster care.” Her mouth tightened, and anger flashed in her eyes. “They mistreat you?”
“Some. Not much. Mostly it was food.”
“Neglect is as painful as a fist to the face,” she whispered, and for the first time, I sensed a softening in her. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Theodosia.”
“Me too,” I joked a little, smiling at her in an attempt to coax a smile from her too, but it didn’t work.
Nibbling on my bottom lip, I watched as she dropped her gaze to the table, to the snacks, and she questioned, “These all for me?”
“I was reading about how you don’t get to have this stuff much.”
“No. Not unless we have visitors, and I never have visitors.”
My throat grew thick. “I-I’d like to visit if I could.”
She shook her head. “No, child. Your place isn’t in here. I don’t have the gift you do, but even I know that.” Her eyes darted around the confines of the walls, taking in the guards, the other prisoners, their families. The smell of disinfectant in the air, as well as traces of tobacco smoke from people’s clothing...she seemed to absorb it all and, with a decisive nod, muttered, “No, this ain’t your place.”
My throat tightened with tears even as I whispered, “It’s not your place either.”
“Judge disagreed,” she stated flatly, then she reached for a box of Mike and Ike’s and muttered, “Want one?”
“I-I can’t. I have to watch my diet.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A boy tell you that?”
I shook my head. “No. No boy. I’m training.”
“For what?”
“I swim,” I told her offhandedly.
“Nicodemus taught you that.” Her lips twisted. “I think he’d like that.”
“You talk of him with fondness,” I replied, somewhat shaken. “I don’t get it.”
“What’s to get? He was my one. My jílo.” She shrugged. “And I didn’t listen to my momma. I was stupid and selfish, and I stuck by him when I shouldn’t have. Wasn’t his fault.”
Of the many things I’d expected her to say today, of the many things I’d anticipated, her defense of my father wasn’t one of them.
But then, nothing about the past few days had been normal, nothing had gone right. At least, it felt that way to me.
Stanford hadn’t wanted to draft Adam into their swim team because he was a damn fine swimmer, and that wasn’t love talking, just truth. We wouldn’t be getting close now, and instead, not only was that not happening, he was going to be flipping real estate—nowhere, along the line, had that felt like a possibility.
But it was.
Then, here I was, sitting with my momma, and she was defending the man she murdered because he’d beaten her and her daughter.
Something was definitely not computing, but it wasn’t in my way to get mad. Wasn’t in my way to make demands.
I’d learned, repeatedly, that with certain people, you couldn’t force them to speak. You just had to let things flow.
Funny how one of the things I was most looking forward to about college was being out from someone’s household. Being under my own roof.
Never having to watch my words. Not having to withhold from doing something in case it offended another.
Some might say that was only consideration and politeness, but it wasn’t.
I’d been bullied my entire life. Even when I’d been free from tyranny, something had come and snapped at my status quo, ruining it forever.
The day I could live under my own roof, without another person to answer to, was a day I was going to sob from the relief of being free.
And the thing that hurt the most?
If Adam came and lived under that roof, I’d just feel as free as if I was alone.
Adam was mine.
Just like Nicodemus was Genevieve’s.
“W-Would you explain? I don’t understand.”
“Why would you?” she countered, chewing on some candy, her eyes flittering over the colorful packages like she was unsure where to start next. But as she plucked open a Butterfinger, she murmured, “Whatever gift you got, there’s always a price for it. Only the oldest bloodlines get them with enough strength for them to be of any use. Most Roma who claim to be psychic are talking out their asses, just trying to get Gadže to waste some of their coin. But some do have a talent, and if they do, they ain’t wasting it at fairgrounds, let me tell you.
“Gifts don’t hop a generation because we have to learn to deal with them ourselves. There ain’t no books that teach us stuff. We don’t even have it passed down in stories that we can tell our kids. That isn’t the point.
“Kali Sara, or God, or whoever the heck you believe in, they don’t want you to figure it out with help. They want you to work on your gifts on your own, commanding them in your own time.” She blinked, paused, took a bite of the candy, groaned, and muttered, “Forgot how good this stuff tastes.”
My lips twitched, but I didn’t smile, didn’t interrupt. I wanted, so badly, to understand.
“Your grandmother could see auras and was able to heal, but it nearly killed her whenever she did anything more than healing broken bones and the like. Something serious? She could treat it, but if she did, she invited the disease into her. See? A curse.
“You give someone the power to understand another’s suffering, even give them the ability to limit that pain, and then, it’ll kill you. Your compassion and that curse, both’ll kill you.” She took another bite, chewed, then murmured, “There’s a lesson there, Theodosia. Remember, whatever we’ve been granted, it comes at a cost.”
“What kind of cost?”
“Like thirty years behind bars. That kinda thing,” she snapped, then she sucked down a breath and mumbled, “Sorry. Ain’t talked about this shit in a long time, and never thought I’d have to.”
“You didn’t think I’d come for you?”
I wasn’t sure if that hurt or if I understood it.
&
nbsp; She’d had a little girl. Why hadn’t she tried to keep in contact with me?
“I hoped you wouldn’t,” she admitted, nearly breaking my fucking heart. And hell, my heart was already delicate from the stomping Adam had given it, then what with losing Nanny and everything, it was barely keeping things together. “Never wanted you to see me like this,” she rumbled. “But I got your letter. Surprised me because I’d just never expected it, even though I wondered if something would change when you turned eighteen.”
“Y-You remember that?” I whispered, my eyes wide with hope.
“Of course.” Her lips twisted, but she didn’t grace me with a look. “Forty-three hours of labor ain’t something you forget in a hurry, child. Plus, you were the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a few.”
“You had? Why?” I asked softly, something inside me finding comfort in the fact she thought I was beautiful as a baby, that she remembered my birthday.
I felt like a dog hunting for scraps, but maybe I was.
Maybe I was always destined to be hungry in one way or another.
“That was my gift,” she muttered, shoulders slouching.
“What? I thought your gift was with horses?”
“It was, in a way. They liked me, and I liked them, but I was good at birthing foals. They were easier and a lot less intimate than helping women.” She shivered. “Never did like it. Momma made me learn though. Second she caught me with our dog who’d caught on, and then a pregnant cat who appeared—” Her nose crinkled. “I’m not sure what the gift or the curse is with me. Everyone, except for in this place, of course, turns up pregnant around me, and then I have to help them through labor.” A breath gusted from her. “That’s the only decent thing about being stuck in here for thirty years.” She shivered. “Always did hate blood.”
I gaped at her, trying to reconcile all that, then when it was impossible, I muttered, “I’m so confused.”
She snorted. “You and me both.” She reached for a Snickers next, and I’d seen she hadn’t finished anything she tried, just took small nibbles of it and carefully wrapped each candy back up.
Would she be able to take them back with her? I hoped she would, even if I wasn’t sure if that was allowed.
She studied me as she chewed, like she was contemplating something, like she was unsure whether she was going to tell me what was on her mind. I stared at her, eager to learn more. Hell, eager to hear her voice. Just to listen to her, my momma. A woman I’d thought I’d never know… and the irony was, of course, that I had the chance of knowing her, but I didn’t think she’d ever let me in. She had bars in her eyes. More than even the ones I’d seen on my way to the visitation room. She wasn’t going to let me in.
“Did you know when we bear a child,” she stated, breaking into my thoughts, “when they’re born, and when they’re placed in our arms that first time, we whisper a name in their ear at birth?”
My eyes widened. “No. I didn’t know that. What was my name?”
For the first time, her smile was genuine. “Páňi.”
Tilting my head to the side, I questioned, “What does that mean?”
She laughed to herself. “Water.”
That one word made me feel like someone had pulled the chair out from under me. I gulped. “No way.”
She nodded. “Way. You have an affinity with it, child?”
“I-I must have. I’m fast when I race, but even more, if I heal, it makes me feel better.”
A hum escaped her, and it was followed by a crinkling sound as she opened another treat. “Mine was Mezóva.” At my questioning look, she murmured, “Roughly, it means grass. The Kinkades, when we have children, the names we choose for them, they’re often a source of solace. Good luck? Fate?” Genevieve shrugged. “Chance? I don’t know. If you have children, remember to do that. Doesn’t have to be in the old tongue. But a name that’s yours to give them, shared only by them with a chosen partner, it’s a precious rite of passage. You look at the baby, and the name will come to you—just don’t fight it.”
The words resonated with me, made me feel like we were linked in a way she didn’t particularly want, but a question tickled the tip of my tongue when she fell silent. I didn’t want her to stop talking. I could have listened to her for hours.
“Why does grass give you solace?” I inquired, wrinkling my nose.
“It means more than just grass, it means the outside.” Her shoulders tensed. “Always did love being outdoors.”
God, this place couldn’t have been more hellish for her.
Before I could say anything, before I could empathize or sympathize, she grated out, “Our line was given another curse.”
“I know this one,” I muttered. “Our ones.”
Her gaze darted to mine, and her glance was, for once, so penetrating that I froze. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Fuck.”
“What is it?”
“You met him already, didn’t you?” she rasped, the treat forgotten now.
“Y-Yeah. I met him.”
“You with him?” she demanded, and I didn’t understand her urgency even though I reacted to it.
“No. He’s married.”
A shaky sigh escaped her, and with trembling hands, she covered her face and muttered, “Thank God.” For a little while she rocked herself, and I just gaped at her. Wondering why it was good that I was denied my jílo.
Wasn’t that the whole point of a jílo, for God’s sake? That you were with them?
But, whatever I thought, my mother didn’t agree. She carried on rocking herself, muttering, “Thank God,” at least three more times.
I wanted to reach out, to touch her, hug her, get her attention, but I didn’t. I just stared at her, waiting for her to get over whatever the hell it was that had affected her so badly.
My gaze drifted to the old-fashioned clock above the gates I’d strolled through, and I saw I only had another ninety minutes with her. I knew that might have seemed like a long time, but I had eighteen years to make up for.
More than that, I had to come to terms with what I was.
What she’d helped make me be.
“Nicodemus was my one,” she murmured, making me jolt because she started speaking out of the blue, her face still covered by her hands. “Your nanny told me I shouldn’t be with him, and I knew it, but I loved him so much, Theodosia. I felt sure it wouldn’t go wrong with us.”
Go wrong?
Her hand snapped out all of a sudden and her fingers were in mine. “You must never be with him,” she snarled.
I jumped in surprise, not from her touch, which stunned me, not from her words, but from the, “No touching!” that was growled at us by a guard across the room.
She instantly raised her hand, didn’t bother to grace the guard with a look, just stared at me square in the eye. “You can’t be with him, Theodosia.”
“W-Why not?” Her surety filled me with dread.
“Because you’re not destined to be together. The gift is knowing who your soulmate is, the curse is never being able to be with them. If you are...things go wrong.”
“What kind of things?” I whispered, feeling horror and terror dawn inside me like an endless day.
“J-Just things. Nicodemus was a good boy. He loved me, and he loved you, but the second you were born, it was like the beginning of the end. I recognized it, and I was grateful we traveled around so much because it meant your grandmother wasn’t there to tell me, ‘I told you so.’”
Tears pricked my eyes. “It was my fault?”
Her focus seemed to turn outward at that, and briskly, she muttered, “No, of course not. It wasn’t you. It was the curse.”
“The curse.”
I repeated that flatly.
She pursed her lips. “Yes. You don’t have to believe me—”
But didn’t I?
Look at what had happened after I met Adam?
I’d been rolling along, living my life, not particularly happy or
sad, just getting through the days, using the pool as a coping mechanism.
Then, he’d come into my existence, blown the doors wide open, and all of a sudden, I was being drowned in a pool.
Cain was in jail.
Because of me.
Most of the kids at school hated me because they thought that little act of attempted murder had only been a hazing joke gone wrong, and I had too large a stick up my ass to recognize it as such. Because, yeah, I had the ability to control whether the Justice Department deemed something was a crime or not, didn’t I?
But—and it was a massive but—could it be considered a curse to be drawn out of poverty, without much hopes for the future except for community college courses I couldn’t afford, and suddenly be soaring into a whole other world?
I wasn’t talking about riches, wasn’t even talking about getting into Stanford for free.
I was talking about the Olympics.
I knew I had it in me to reach the national team. So did Coach.
I’d already had spotters attending my meets. I knew the interest was keen.
If the Olympics hadn’t taken place the year I was just starting to make a name for myself on the scene, I had no doubt I’d have been on the team already. As it was, Tokyo was the end goal, and I knew, deep in my bones, I had it in me to reach those dizzying heights.
Even more so, I knew I had it in me to take gold.
I rubbed my hand over my mouth, pondering all that before I said, “Lots of battered women defend their husbands.”
She snorted. “They don’t defend them after they’ve killed them. I knew I had to. The second he went after you?” She shook her head. “I knew there was no going back. I condemned him the second I took him into my heart and let myself love him. It was all my fault.”
That she believed what she was saying was clear to me. There were even tears in her eyes, and it boggled my mind because I knew they weren’t for her or for me, but for him.
Her abuser.
This was all kinds of wrong. So many kinds of fucked up that I didn’t know where to begin.
But she believed it.
And I could see what she meant where the gift and the curse were concerned, which concerned me even more.
Above The Surface Page 25